As today's universities proudly churn out illiterate graduates from the "School of Resentment"--saddled with debt, few prospects, and even more resentment--it's saddening to hear of Harold Bloom's passing. I read his book, "The Western Canon" in the mid-1990s.

I hope to get back to a time when I can devour books again. Sadly, we're loosing some of the greats from before the time when colleges and universities became closed minded backwaters for disaffected Marxists.

I'll have to take in some Shakespeare in his honor.

"If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black."-- Joe Biden to DJ Charlamagne tha God

Tainari88 wrote:For me, backwaters are the ones who never discuss Marx. Lol.

I never stopped reading books. I never heard of Harold Bloom.

Never heard of the man BJ.

If you got a graduate degree in the humanities and you never heard of Bloom then you went to a backwater diploma mill.

"only 12% of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many two or three." - Professor Walter Ricciardi, Director of the Department of Public Health

Sivad wrote:If you got a graduate degree in the humanities and you never heard of Bloom then you went to a backwater diploma mill.

Who said my graduate degree was in the humanities? Lol.

I studied in three different countries Sivad.

I doubt you know all the people I studied in other languages besides English.

Shakespeare is only one great one in a very large group of great literature produced by many cultures all over the world. It is a mistake to believe that if you did not hear about someone.....that it means they are not important.

How many Chinese poets and writers have you read in your lifetime Sivad?

If you ask the Chinese? They got the best literature. You ask the Indians in India? They do. You ask the Magyar or the Hungarians? They do. And the Russians? They got great literature galore, etc.

So who is right?

Lol. People got cultural loyalties. For Bloom Yiddish was the language that made understanding possible for the universality of Shakespeare.

For the Spaniards it is Don Quijote, or La Celestina. Who is the American Shakespeare?

Sivad, part of being wise is knowing one doesn't know everything and if you are honest? You admit it. There are plenty of people I have never heard of or read before. That is normal.

Tainari88 wrote:Who said my graduate degree was in the humanities? Lol.

You said you had a graduate degree in anthropology, right? Anthropology is part of the humanities.

"only 12% of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many two or three." - Professor Walter Ricciardi, Director of the Department of Public Health

How many Chinese poets and writers have you read in your lifetime Sivad?

If you ask the Chinese? They got the best literature. You ask the Indians in India? They do. You ask the Magyar or the Hungarians? They do. And the Russians? They got great literature galore, etc.

So who is right?

Obviously there have been important contributions to the common heritage from many cultures but the Western canon is unparalleled in every respect. Without the canon we're all just illiterate hicks.

"only 12% of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many two or three." - Professor Walter Ricciardi, Director of the Department of Public Health

"only 12% of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many two or three." - Professor Walter Ricciardi, Director of the Department of Public Health

Sivad wrote:You said you had a graduate degree in anthropology, right? Anthropology is part of the humanities.

Anthropology is a bit weird. It is a hybrid Sivad. A forensic anthro person or a paleontologist does a lot of science and studies a fair amount of different types of sciences. You got to take a bit of genetics, and archaeology is fairly technical, you got linguistics that is in many ways a technical thing but also an art. You got primatology, linguistics, medical anthro with some subfields, archaeology which I always did very well in....and you got urban anthropology which is like sociology.

You can specialize in many things within anthropology. You are studying human beings. Or to be politically incorrect mankind.

And that is a broad field.

Anthropology has its rock stars. Richard Leakey and his wife Mary, Jane Goodall, and many more....everyone thinks it is something very humanities-based Sivad. But it is a fairly mixed field of science and art. Both together. Just the way I like my life. Both together. The reason I adore Potemkin so much is that he is a very hard science person he studied nuclear physics but he also has a lot of love for art. He has a degree in Russian film and loves music and is a lover of fine music, art, and so on....he has developed both. That is what I love Sivad....full development of both....the arts and the sciences.

A good balance. One of the great modern anthropologists is a woman from the Dominican Republic. I think National Geographic featured her in some articles about Egypt.

I love ancient history, and ancient civilizations Sivad. One learns a lot about what makes humans very much human, from studying in-depth the past...it is a great endeavor.

There is a museum here in Merida called Palacio Canton, and it talks about how the Ancient Mayas viewed the cosmos and the world...how they organized their societies and their idea of the number zero. The absence of quantity. The absence of value.

"only 12% of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many two or three." - Professor Walter Ricciardi, Director of the Department of Public Health

Sivad wrote:Obviously there have been important contributions to the common heritage from many cultures but the Western canon is unparalleled in every respect. Without the canon we're all just illiterate hicks.

I think one has to stop thinking any one particular human culture has the 'truth'and the light and the way as if it were Jesus of Nazareth Sivad.

Every human culture has the foundations for greatness. Simply because they are part of a human society, they inhabit a certain environment and or land base, and they experience life. Even a life without writing or reading. You must realize that publicly funded education and mass amounts of people exchanging information and histories and philosophies instantly in this sort of format is very very recent.

Most Americans did not attend a school consistently all the way through the 1920's and beyond. So? Many people were living their lives without a formal education. For thousands of years. Just because they weren't formally educated did not mean that they could never contribute or pass on knowledge. They did it through official apprenticeships, oral discussions and hands on demonstrations of what they learned to others. Most learning is very social Sivad. Even in this format.

Illiteracy is an impediment to learning not because writing is a magic pill that makes you a critical thinker and you have the technical skill to decipher written symbols.....but because of being able to listen and understand to a wide variety of opinions, and digest facts and graphs and process information from an incredibly wide ranging series of people. From every language, culture and background and history that has ever been recorded or written down.

It is almost magical to have access to that variation.

I find any kind of judgment in which an entire group's contributions are belittled or ignored because someone says only these people's culture or history is important and of value is for the ones who are illiterate hicks Sivad.

I would never deny myself the pleasure of reading a great author because he is a European like Shakespeare was, or because he is a Black American like W.E.B DuBois was. Or because he is Mexican or Peruvian or Costa Rican or Nicaraguan...one of the greatest writers and poets in the Spanish language is from Nicaragua. Ruben Dario.

But if you don't know that culture and you don't pay attention? You think the only ones with talent are from England or France or Germany.

Asia has vast storehouses of knowledge that is written down. Many Chinese people were poor as dirt and rural for thousands of years and few could read or write. It doesn't mean they weren't learning something during their lifetimes.

Most of our ancestors Sivad were illiterate rural people. I know my grandfather was on my father's side. He died illiterate in 1941. But he told great stories, recited poetry and song lyrics by heart in the plaza, and told very popular jokes with his fellow countrymen. He was loved. And was a fine father. Which all his sons followed his example by being steadfast and loving fathers to their children as well.

Human life is very interesting. The key is to seeing value in human experiences. All of them and not thinking a certain group has all the answers. That would be limiting.

Tainari88 wrote:I think one has to stop thinking any one particular human culture has the 'truth'and the light and the way as if it were Jesus of Nazareth Sivad.

Every human culture has the foundations for greatness. Simply because they are part of a human society, they inhabit a certain environment and or land base, and they experience life. Even a life without writing or reading. You must realize that publicly funded education and mass amounts of people exchanging information and histories and philosophies instantly in this sort of format is very very recent.

Most Americans did not attend a school consistently all the way through the 1920's and beyond. So? Many people were living their lives without a formal education. For thousands of years. Just because they weren't formally educated did not mean that they could never contribute or pass on knowledge. They did it through official apprenticeships, oral discussions and hands on demonstrations of what they learned to others. Most learning is very social Sivad. Even in this format.

Illiteracy is an impediment to learning not because writing is a magic pill that makes you a critical thinker and you have the technical skill to decipher written symbols.....but because of being able to listen and understand to a wide variety of opinions, and digest facts and graphs and process information from an incredibly wide ranging series of people. From every language, culture and background and history that has ever been recorded or written down.

It is almost magical to have access to that variation.

I find any kind of judgment in which an entire group's contributions are belittled or ignored because someone says only these people's culture or history is important and of value is for the ones who are illiterate hicks Sivad.

I would never deny myself the pleasure of reading a great author because he is a European like Shakespeare was, or because he is a Black American like W.E.B DuBois was. Or because he is Mexican or Peruvian or Costa Rican or Nicaraguan...one of the greatest writers and poets in the Spanish language is from Nicaragua. Ruben Dario.

But if you don't know that culture and you don't pay attention? You think the only ones with talent are from England or France or Germany.

Asia has vast storehouses of knowledge that is written down. Many Chinese people were poor as dirt and rural for thousands of years and few could read or write. It doesn't mean they weren't learning something during their lifetimes.

Most of our ancestors Sivad were illiterate rural people. I know my grandfather was on my father's side. He died illiterate in 1941. But he told great stories, recited poetry and song lyrics by heart in the plaza, and told very popular jokes with his fellow countrymen. He was loved. And was a fine father. Which all his sons followed his example by being steadfast and loving fathers to their children as well.

Human life is very interesting. The key is to seeing value in human experiences. All of them and not thinking a certain group has all the answers. That would be limiting.

I absolutely agree with your every word. Each culture is important and unique, and if you do not know about it, this does not mean that it is insignificant. We live in a time of multiculturalism and it is worth respecting the worldview of other people (if it is not imposed on you, of course).

JohnGaarg wrote:I absolutely agree with your every word. Each culture is important and unique, and if you do not know about it, this does not mean that it is insignificant. We live in a time of multiculturalism and it is worth respecting the worldview of other people (if it is not imposed on you, of course).

Yes JohnGaarg, we do live in a world of multiculturalism.

Most humans thrive on variation. They like seeing different movies with different themes and genres of them, and the same for literature, art, dance, and music. People love variation. In food, in many things. But somehow they have difficulty accepting other people who are living in other variations of human culture. I think it comes from fear and wanting some type of artificial conformity that makes them feel safe and not having to deal with the great unknown or have to make efforts.

i always have known that variation is what drives life. The ones who doubt that are the ones who don't understand the world they live in yet. Do they keep expecting that if everyone spoke only one human language? Looked the same, dressed the same, they want everyone to think the same and be the same? Things are easier to deal with. They don't seem to realize the world varies, as in different geographies, topographies, varieties of climate, weather, plants vary a lot, animals do too, and so does every living thing. Human culture and human life and how to adapt to it all should vary a lot. Why want the world to lose its variation? in the end? It is not going to be good for us. Less variation? Less ability to find answers when something attacks us. Whether it be a pandemic, a disease, a lack of clean water, a lack of arable food, a lack of variety of seeds for varied crops, and lack of variation in the jungle, forests, deserts, mountains, and plains are asking for extinction.

It is weird that they don't see it. Fear and lack of intelligence about variation is the only explanation.

Yeah, as specimens for study. But when it comes to human flourishing some cultures are definitely superior to others and many backwards inferior cultures just need to be abandoned entirely.

"only 12% of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many two or three." - Professor Walter Ricciardi, Director of the Department of Public Health

Sivad wrote:Yeah, as specimens for study. But when it comes to human flourishing some cultures are definitely superior to others and many backwards inferior cultures just need to be abandoned entirely.

Perhaps you are right, and stronger cultures are absorbed by the rest, this is in some way a natural process. But I think that you should not do this aggressively and artificially. As I wrote above, we really live in a time of multiculturalism, even in schools studydriver.com/multiculturalism-essay/ essays write about it, and some mature people have not learned to accept people who are different from them.

Sivad wrote:Yeah, as specimens for study. But when it comes to human flourishing some cultures are definitely superior to others and many backwards inferior cultures just need to be abandoned entirely.

You need to stop believing that Mexican culture is inferior to other cultures due to what? BULLSHIT.

It makes you sound bad. It does. The USA was populated by working class and poor people from all over the world. If your criteria is that poverty=inferiority it is erroneous. Not only on the people who you discriminate against? But on your own.

Where do you come from Sivad? Rich people? No. Then why identify with that as a culture? Is that the only way you can feel good about yourself? To identify with some Europeans whom you have nothing in common with anymore because you grew up in the Americas and here it is full of people from all over the world who come here to get jobs and try to 'make it'. And the class they come from is from the bottom. Not the top.

Get your head on straight because you keep coming across instead of as objective man you come across as some kind of white nationalist. If you are not? Don't spout the same rhetoric they spout.

I think you are some kind of anarchist, but you sound really discriminatory Sivad.

If you want to be the 'superior' one? Go to the university, get an education, and sweat for your knowledge and work hard on yourself. Get rid of bad ugly habits that impede your progress as an individual and make something out of your life. Make it happen and stop making excuses of why you don't want to do something.

Go tell the people whom you think inferior that they are inferior. What will that gain you? Nothing.

The cold cruel world won't care why you made up excuses for your lack of education and working on your intellect.

Especially being a white kid. You can't use the excuse,--I am white and that is why I never went to college or did anything about getting a career.

I just want to do drugs and hate on the inferior cultures while not doing shit for myself. Way to go...Sivad, don't be making cheap excuses.

"only 12% of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many two or three." - Professor Walter Ricciardi, Director of the Department of Public Health